Anyone experienced with Media PCs?

Freakin · #1 11-20-2007, 03:57 PM

I just picked up a Zalman HD135 to build some old Athlon hardware into a media PC.

I'm still trying to decide between XP MCE and something a little more controllable like MythTV.

I'm not planning on having a tuner card in the system (can't compete with Tivo, IMO) so it will be mostly just for media files, etc.

My biggest concern is configuration of MythTV. I've never set it up before, and I'm not terribly familiar with setting up and troubleshooting hardware in linux.

I'd like to get the zalman built in IR receiver and VFD display to work with linux/mythTV, but I'm not sure if that's going to be doable.

The main reason I'm looking towards MythTV over XP MCE is for a decent catalog of movies & shows that have 'album' artwork & information pulled from IMDB, something I believe that MythTV can handle.

If any of you have worked with this stuff before, I'd appreciate some guidance. I'm currently installing Ubuntu Desktop (GG) on it and I'm going to install MythTV on it afterwards.

I'm planning on following this guide for the setup.

If possible, I want to be able to completely remove any "Watch TV" options from MythTV so they don't get in the way.

HALP!

_dave_ · #2 11-20-2007, 08:34 PM

After a quick perusal of your linked article, I didn't see it mentioned.

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I'd like to get the zalman built in IR receiver

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You will be wanting lirc - http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/LIRC

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and VFD display to work with linux/mythTV, but I'm not sure if that's going to be doable.

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http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php...y:LCD_displays

Hopefully it is one of these models, I couldn't tell after a quick review of the case specifications - although any VFD is bound to be workable in Linux.

Freakin · #3 11-21-2007, 10:47 PM

Hmm, I'm having some problems with HD playback. I'm trying to play some H.264 1080p files and getting nonstop stutter. From looking around it appears as though there isn't any way to use hardware to decode the video, so it's putting it all off on my processor instead of the 8600GT with built in 264 decoding =/ I really don't want to switch to windows cause I've been enjoying playing with MythTV for the last 2 days.

Anyone know anything about how I could resolve this (outside of upgrading my processor)?

Bremen · #4 11-22-2007, 12:00 AM

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Hmm, I'm having some problems with HD playback. I'm trying to play some H.264 1080p files and getting nonstop stutter. From looking around it appears as though there isn't any way to use hardware to decode the video, so it's putting it all off on my processor instead of the 8600GT with built in 264 decoding =/ I really don't want to switch to windows cause I've been enjoying playing with MythTV for the last 2 days.

Anyone know anything about how I could resolve this (outside of upgrading my processor)?

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You have an old Athlon, with a 8600? Short of new software versions to take advantage of the driver acceleration a proc upgrade is your only option. I don't know if nvidia's linux drivers even provide h.264 acceleration either :0(

These are files you ripped correct? You could use a different codec such as divx.

Freakin · #5 11-22-2007, 06:20 AM

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Hmm, I'm having some problems with HD playback. I'm trying to play some H.264 1080p files and getting nonstop stutter. From looking around it appears as though there isn't any way to use hardware to decode the video, so it's putting it all off on my processor instead of the 8600GT with built in 264 decoding =/ I really don't want to switch to windows cause I've been enjoying playing with MythTV for the last 2 days.

Anyone know anything about how I could resolve this (outside of upgrading my processor)?

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You have an old Athlon, with a 8600?

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Athlon 3500+. Originally put a GeForce 7100GS in it, but when I read that 8500 & 8600 had hardware H264 decoder built in, I thought I'd try.

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Short of new software versions to take advantage of the driver acceleration a proc upgrade is your only option. I don't know if nvidia's linux drivers even provide h.264 acceleration either :0(

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They don't, that's currently the problem. There are some REALLY crude hacks to get acceleration working by hacking directshow filters into various media programs, but they are pretty ugly.

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These are files you ripped correct? You could use a different codec such as divx.

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Yeah I considered a different codec, but H264 is REALLY nice and divx/xvid just don't do as good of a job as H264.

Bremen · #6 11-22-2007, 06:56 AM

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Athlon 3500+. Originally put a GeForce 7100GS in it, but when I read that 8500 & 8600 had hardware H264 decoder built in, I thought I'd try.

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Ouch, I thought you were using an old old Athlon, not one of the 64bit chips :-\ If your choice is a faster chip or WinMCE I'd point out a top line S939 chip is cheaper than WinMCE :0) Although its impossible to know if you'd still have problems until you try it [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] (if the player/library is multithreaded you shouldn't have a problem, dunno if thats the case)

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Yeah I considered a different codec, but H264 is REALLY nice and divx/xvid just don't do as good of a job as H264.

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I don't blame you in the slightest.

Freakin · #7 11-22-2007, 04:10 PM

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Athlon 3500+. Originally put a GeForce 7100GS in it, but when I read that 8500 & 8600 had hardware H264 decoder built in, I thought I'd try.

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Ouch, I thought you were using an old old Athlon, not one of the 64bit chips :-\ If your choice is a faster chip or WinMCE I'd point out a top line S939 chip is cheaper than WinMCE :0) Although its impossible to know if you'd still have problems until you try it [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] (if the player/library is multithreaded you shouldn't have a problem, dunno if thats the case)

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Ok, I've thrown in an extra HDD to try out MCE (which I already had a copy of). I was pleased to discover Media Portal (http://www.team-mediaportal.com/) an open-source windows-based HTPC solution. It is basically like MythTV for windows. It installed incredibly easy, and so far it looks like it should meet my needs. Best of all, a 9GB H.264 file played without a stutter or hiccup at all. I'm gonna do a little more testing but I think I'm probably going to stick with windows. My IR module isn't easily supported by LIRC, and the VFD is even harder to get working.

After installing Media Portal it automatically set up the remote control profile so keys were all mapped to appropriate buttons, and I can set the VFD to do whatever I want (there is an active thread on the MP forum from people trying to get the VFD to output MP information, so it should work pretty soon).

Unless I see something major that I hate about MP, I'm going to stick with it over MythTV for now.

_dave_ · #8 11-22-2007, 08:02 PM

Probably too little too late - looks like CoreAVC codec is one of the better performing directshow hacks. It appears to have support for MPlayer & MythTV.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoreAVC

Freakin · #9 11-23-2007, 10:52 PM

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Probably too little too late - looks like CoreAVC codec is one of the better performing directshow hacks. It appears to have support for MPlayer & MythTV.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoreAVC

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this is the hack I considered doing. even this seemed like too much of a headache to make it worth it.

mediaportal is great so far.